Concept

In March 1995, Dr Kataria was researching an article for his health magazine on the benefits of laughter. He discovered an overwhelming body of scientific literature, that described in great detail the amazing health benefits of laughter. In particular he was inspired by the book written by Norman Cousins called “ Anatomy of an Illness”, which described how Norman cousins had cured a painful and debilitating condition with repeated bouts of laughter. He was also inspired by the research work into the health benefits of laughter undertaken by Dr Lee Berk, of Loma Linda University.

Dr Kataria decided that if laughter provided such amazing health benefits then it would be a great idea if everybody had a chance to laugh everyday. He created the idea of a laughter club in which a group of people gathered together to laugh. At 7 am on 13 (?) March 1995 Dr Kataria gathered with four other people in a public park near his home to laugh. At that moment the world's first Laughter Club was born.

At first the group started laughing when one member of the group told a joke or a funny story. After about two weeks however the group ran out of good jokes. It became clear to Dr Kataria that if the laughter club group was to continue meeting they would need to find another way to stimulate their laughter without relying on funny stories or jokes.

That night while reviewing literature on laughter, Dr Kataria read that the human mind cannot tell the difference between real laughter and fake laughter and that the health benefits of fake laughter are the same as for real laughter. He became inspired to create a series of laughter exercises that would stimulate the Laughter Club group members to laugh by initially using fake laughter. He quickly found that this method soon produced real laughter among the group members. Over time you are reading and gentle exercises were included in the laughter club routine and the concept of Laughter Yoga was formed.

12 years later the concept of laughter clubs has grown to a world wide phenomenon and there are now more than 5000 laughter clubs in countries including India, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Netherlands, Finland, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa and Dubai.

The concept of Laughter Yoga clubs has been reported by prestigious television channels like BBC, CNN, ABC (USA), NHK (Japan), Channel 7 & 9 (Australia), ZDF Germany and newspapers, magazines like National Geographic, Marie Clare, New York Times, London Times, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Time magazine and many others.